I love fishing with flies other people give me and I end up buying too many at TU auctions, especially if I know the tier and I think the flies are going for a low price that insults the quality of the tier. Passing patterns around is a joy of the flyfishing world.

I also like to support local flyshops, especially those that tie their own local flies. It's fun to accumulate different local flies as you travel around. For example, I will buy some Mr Rapidans at Harry Murrays flyshop when traveling down Rte 81 or a Walts worm and some craneflies from Flyfishers Paradise. If I get tips from a flyshop I feel obligated to buy something (usually some local flies) in return.

Finally, there are flies I hate to tie, or ones I don't use enough to buy the material. I will buy these rather than tie them. In that vein, some flies just look a whole lot nicer when tied by a pro.

Other than flies I recieve in swaps, I tie all the flies that I use which covers the range from trout to salt water, sizes 32 to 12/0. The last time I brought flies was 3 or 4 years ago when I stopped in Fran Betz's shop to pick up a license, and he was there tying. I brought a couple, more for a keepsake than actual use.